Label(s): Driftwood RecordsThis post's artist is from the November 2015 Mix. This is track #1.

You can download: the December Mix#12 right hereor get the new January 2016 Mix#1 here.

I don't know why I opted to check out a random facebook post about six months ago, but holy shit I'm glad I did. O' GOD THE WHITE WHALE released a single, beautiful, dark, angry and technical screamo record that will go down as housing some of the best tracks I heard this year, as I missed the boat by three years. The bands clashes a few styles, most notably Caitlyn Bailey, Hot Cross and Lord Snow. The crazy thing is, the band is as good as you'd hope the previous amalgamation would be, not the usual sub-par "oh it's decent but nowhere near as good as the other bands". This 6-song EP is fucking sick.

Let's start with the insanely good "Brand New Song" which is probably the best song on the album. Just after 10 seconds in the dueling guitar wizardry kicks in and at 40 seconds in the screams really start to permeate past the emotionally charged talking/singing that is prominent on every song. The spoken vocals are quite reminiscent of Lord Snow, but when the screams start the intensity is taken up a notch as the screams bare more resemblance to Welcome The Plague Year and Makara's Kerry Pries (interviewed here). The mixture of heavy, discordant pushes are balanced by Josh Jakubowski-esque melodies (think Neil Perry, The Now and Hot Cross). I love this kind of mixture between chaos and beauty, as I also love the equilibrium of high pitched female screams and low, gutteral male ones. "Ends. Endings." is another gem of a jam that brings some sexy Back When riffing into the mix, which I'm a goddamn sucker for. The vocals when sung sound like a mixture of Steph from Lord Snow and Billy from Saetia/Hot Cross. The screams are littered throughout this song and the back and forth doesn't stray far from OsoLuna territory, which they also match with some atmospheric instrumentals. Seriously the screaming on this track is killer. "Fourteen Years" would probably be the best song to use to introduce this band to a person that is more skeptical on the screaming and heaviness scale, as the intro and build to the song are quite accessible and fantastic at the same time. The imminent explosion detonates at 2:39 after a truly angelic and epic crescendo which culminates in a ridiculously amazing conclusion. Holy fucking shit. The closer and title track "Never Knows Best" is by far the heaviest and most devastating song on the record, so take note before the dark growls of, "I am nowhere. I am nowhere. I am nowhere. I am nowhere." lead you down the path of worshipping Satan.

All six tracks on here kick major ass (with the possible exception of "Cicada Whisper", so stop dilly dallying and download that overlooked gem that is O' GOD THE WHITE WHALE. Fucking stat.

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DISCOGRAPHY

2009 - some EP perhaps called We Put the Fun in Funeral (stream a song here)

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